Love Trumps Dogma (Finally) – The greatest civil rights victory in the last 50 years has arrived!!!!

I’ll make this relatively brief because all I really have to say is that I’m crazy-excited about today’s landmark SCOTUS decision insuring legal gay marriage throughout our land! I am one happy straight guy today. I emphasize that I’m straight because I want to make it clear that I’m not happy because this benefits me personally.

I’m happy because this benefits everyone.

I’m happy because this applies the 14th amendment to everyone. As JamesObergefell, the lead plaintiff, said this morning:

“Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across this country already know to be true in our hearts – our love is equal; that the four words etched onto the front of the Supreme Court – equal justice under law – apply to us, too.”

I’m happy because this furthers the cause of applying the concept that “all men are created equal” to an ever-widening notion of “ALL”.

I’m happy because this demonstrates that, in a country founded on liberty, LOVE between rational human beings can still trump religious dogma.

More than anything, I’m happy because now, throughout the United States, the sanctity of monogamous marital commitment can now be celebrated equally for all who wish to dedicate themselves to loving each other and creating traditional family units.

I’m always surprised when I see the most conservative people arguing against gay marriage. Conservatives, above all, should want two things that legal gay marriage provides:

The need to keep the government out of our personal lives

The want of people – regardless of sexual identity or gender orientation – to have traditional monogamous relationships

THEY should be the ones who WANT gay marriage!

Unfortunately…. the true small-government, traditional family conservatives have been completely overrun by the dogmatic, Bible-thumping, evangelical Conservatives. That piece of the Republican party has every right to their religious beliefs. It’s their desire that Christian religious views should have control over American jurisprudence that’s the problem. This is not even an issue of Conservatism. It’s an issue of religion. And religion must be separate from law in a country that celebrates diversity. That’s the ONLY way to avoid the “tyranny of the majority”.

I am a fan of traditional monogamous families and I’m especially a fan of those families who dedicate themselves to rearing well-adjusted children. To that point, Justice Kennedy nailed it when he wrote:

“Without the recognition, stability and predictability marriage offers, their children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,”

I want to give you my answer (as a non-lawyer) to the two things that Republicans say against this decision:

They say that this is a “states rights” issue. -> WRONG. If we left marriage law purely up to the states, there would still be states where whites and blacks could not intermarry. In this particular case, democracy at the state level would, through the “tyranny of the majority” enshrine discrimination.

They say that the court has “redefined an institution that has been in place for millennia” -> TRUE. But that’s NOT a bad thing. Slavery goes back as far as the Romans, the Hebrews, and the ancient Sumarians. It was in place for millennia too. Then, human culture evolved. Change is GOOD when it is in favor of respect, dignity, and cultural evolution!. The same people who (rightly!) call Sharia law medieval say we should not change an institution just because it’s thousands of years old. Not only is that hypocritical, it’s not even intellectually consistent. Institutions must adapt to evolving cultures. That’s my opinion.